"Pressure increased on Gordon Brown to set out a timetable for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq yesterday after Lord Ashdown warned the coalition mission had been undermined by "ridiculously" over-optimistic aims.

Lord Ashdown speaking on BBC One's Sunday AM programme

With casualty rates among British forces rising, there is speculation that the current force of 5,000 troops could be reduced to about 1,000 next year, at a time when a General Election might be held.

Opposition figures suggested last night that it was time to concede that Iraq had been a failure.

Their comments came after Field Marshal Lord Inge, the former Chief of Defence Staff, told the Lords that both Afghanistan and Iraq had become a "strategic failure".

"The situation in Afghanistan is much worse than many people recognise," Lord Inge told peers. "We need to face up to that issue, the consequence of strategic failure in Afghanistan and what that would mean for Nato." His remarks were said to echo the views of serving commanders. Lord Ashdown, the former Liberal Democrat leader, launched a stinging attack on the British and American approach to Iraq. The Government has consistently stated that troops will only come home as the security situation improves, but Lord Ashdown, who was offered a place in the Brown government, said coalition forces can no longer suppress the violence.

He added: ''We committed the cardinal sin of these interventions, which is to have ridiculously overambitious aims; to recreate Washington in Baghdad, to recreate a fully-functioning western-style democracy in a Middle Eastern country."

Lord Ashdown, who served in the Royal Marines and Special Boat Service, told BBC One's Sunday AM: "Our withdrawal rate should be determined not by the security situation - which allows the militias, the insurgents, to determine our withdrawal - but by the state of training of the Iraqi forces."

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, refused to "get into the prediction game" about troop withdrawal, but said: "It's a very difficult and very dangerous situation.""

So yet again the Liar Bour Government are warned of strategic failure and still they are paralysed between political face saving and the blood of young Britons in a foreign land. Oh dear.......

Our withdrawal rate should be determined not by the security situation - which allows the militias, the insurgents, to determine our withdrawal - but by the state of training of the Iraqi forces.

Click to expand...

So called 'Iraqi forces' in fact are hidden or potential insurgents in uniforms.

The decision about the withdrawal really depends on Washington. No doubt that mr.Brown promissed to mr.Blair not to make unilateral steps at least in the near future. I suppose that it was a part of the bargain.